The End of the Cold WarThe End of the Cold War

THE END OF THE COLD WAR

Topic (The End of the Cold War) 1- American presidents, from Eisenhower to Nixon, had to construct a foreign policy around Vietnam. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had first stated the domino theory, that if the U.S. were to allow Vietnam to fall to the communists, the other countries in S.E. Asia would follow. And then India. How would you rate the effectiveness of these presidents in dealing with Vietnam and other national issues? The following link is a ranking of the presidents by TimesOnline:

2- Did our leaders perpetuate the state of fear regarding communism? Why?

3- Why did the US and USSR disagree so broadly on the post-war division of Germany?

4- What are the inherent differences between capitalism/democracy and communism? Can they co-exist? Were the Soviets as nervous as the Americans with regard to these concerns?

THE NOT SO COLD WAR

1- How did a local struggle in Vietnam turn into a major event of the Cold War? What differing opinions did Americans have about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War? Do you think the U.S. was justified in going to Vietnam? Please be sure to use credible-scholarly sources.

2- The Cold War was about ‘Brink Events’, incidents which took the world to the brink of nuclear war. The East-West confrontation over Berlin and Cuba were both brink events which could have resulted in global destruction, but actually had the effect of lessening US-Soviet tensions. How?

3- To what extent did individual personalities play a role in the end of the Cold War? What can you find about the role of such key personalities as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev? Could the Cold War have ended without them? And what about the role of Pope John Paul II?